Friday, October 29, 2010

Another photograph from the Abuja Expats Yahoo Group. This one is from Irene and her daughter Amelie who is 6 years old. Quite talented already!

This one is called "Popo" which the Nigerian pidgin word for papaya. I learned this the hard way myself when I asked my driver to find me some papaya and he came back and said no one in the market knew what I was talking about.

At that moment we drove past some papaya...and I pointed at it and said 'papaya'. My driver (Joseph) looked at me like I was a moron and said "POPO".

Now that I've told that story, I'm going to go cut myself one and eat it.

Monday, October 25, 2010

By Francis Asprec, currently working in Sichuan, China. He holds a MSc from New York University in Global Affairs.

Some Background:

In the past month, tensions between China and Japan have escalated to new heights. The latest incident involves a Chinese fisherman who was detained by Japanese authorities and released after much pressure from the Chinese government.

Eventually, he was released. While China felt victorious in getting Mr. Zhan back home, the relations between these neighboring countries is far from healed. China is still demanding an apology.

The Real Problem: Territory.

Captain Zhan sailed near Diayou, an island that China claims. The Japanese call those islands Senkaku and claim them. This dispute has dragged on for many years and nothing has been resolved. Eyes On The Ground:

I witnessed a demonstration of more than 200 people in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. This demonstration called for Chinese people to boycott Japanese stores in Chengdu. These people wanted to express their anger and outrage and demanded that Japan apologize to China for this mishap. The demonstrators’ message was loud and clear. Half of Chunxi Lu (Road), a commercial street filled with shops, restaurants, and socializing, was blocked off.

Questions:

How can each country work on improving their relations?

Will there ever be a resolution towards the territorial dispute?

What lessons can be learned so far about China-Japan relations?

How are the world’s second and third largest economies going to resolve their problems?

These questions will continue to be asked. At the moment, there are no clear answers, but I firmly believe that China and Japan will work out their differences.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

To balance out my usually less than positive comments about the country of Nigeria, I want to have a photo contest of Nigeria pictures. I'll post the pictures up here, and ask you to vote on them and tell me which ones you like.

Categories:

People

Landscape/Nature

Culture (probably similar to people, but this section is dedicated to cultural traditions)

Do you want to submit a photo? Send me a comment with a link to your photos or a message of interest and I'll do my best to post your photo.

You do NOT need to be a professional photographer. Also, there is no prize, other than winning the contest and getting some publicity on my blog. The real prize is reminding the world that Nigeria can also be a beautiful place.

I'll need your name, the place being photographed, date it was taken and any comment you would like on your picture.

For those of you who haven't been to Nigeria, it is a country of contradictions. You can have great roads or poor roads. You can have all the champagne you want, but your electricity (if you have it) turns off several times a day (and then you hear the rumble of a diesel gas generator).

According to the story above, Nigerians spend roughly 13 BILLION USD a year on diesel generators. Note that this number doesn't include how much they pay for their electric bills (whether or not they get electricity).

President Goodluck Jonathan, who has been publicly condemning the power problem (and reiterating his administration's determination to solve it), addressed international power sector investors at a presidential retreat last week.

The strange thing is that he also said "from 2011, the Federal Government would cease further investments in power generation in distribution."

So, perhaps I misunderstood something. If power is a priority, then why stop paying to solve it?

Now, I understand working with the private sector to try and stem corruption and mismanagement. I also understand splitting the costs (private public partnerships) with the private sector to try and improve things.

What I don't understand the Nigerian government not paying to solve its own problems.

What do you think? If you have better information on this, please let me know.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Sorry I haven't posted in nearly a month. I had malaria and was under treatment for a week. Hope that's a good enough excuse :).

Some news stories that caught my eye today:

The Sources of Soviet Iranian Conduct by KARIM SADJADPOUR. George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, Winston Churchill...still the standard in our foreign policy? Should containment be the plan for Iran? How will that work? An interesting piece, either way.

An Oyinbo, A Coconut and a Cutlass.

About Me

When I went to graduate school to learn how to prevent conflict, I received some good advice: 'If you want to be involved in peace, you have to learn to talk to the military.' I took this to heart, and studied security policy. Now, I want to expand ideas of peace and security. Do you have a suggestion?